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outdoorsie
Apr 15, 2004, 9:18 PM
Post #1 of 4
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Registered: Jan 15, 2003
Posts: 302
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So, maybe some of you read the thread I started a week or two ago: http://www.rockclimbing.com/...iewtopic.php?t=56705. Really, the main reason I posted that was the question that kept coming up "How do you know how much gear to take up on a climb?" Of course, I had to add a good story to get people's attentions, right? Even Mark (my husband) chimed in later with, well, real rightous indignation. Maybe I took it too far...
So, here's the results of all of that discussion. Last weekend, we had an awesome trip to the Red. Aside from climbing more routes in 2 days than we ever had, we finally got a chance to get on Roadside Attraction. A classic 2-pitch 5.7 route at Roadside Crag. The following is an excerp from my trip journal, and is completely un-embellished...
The guidebook says of Roadside Attraction: “Scramble up to a ledge of sorts to begin. Climb the low angled handcrack to a ledge. Continue up the handcrack past a couple of wide sections to another ledge to some anchors. If you want to top it out, belay from this ledge then continue up to the top. Rap anchors. Hands. 140 ft.” This is accurate, however, notice that the book does not indicate how high the first set of anchors are. We decided to just do the first pitch, because it was cloudy and looked like rain.
We could see several tree ledges on the climb from the ground, so we assumed the first ledge was not where the anchors were. It was probably the second one. Mark spent some real time thinning the rack and trying to make sure he didn’t take too much gear up this climb. He took off. Cool side note: we used the new 4.5 cam as the directional for the climb!
Mark got up to the second ledge and there were no anchors. He was also running low on gear. There was a tree there, but he said the ledge was too small, and the crack too wide for him to feel comfortable with a belay station there. We discussed the situation for a while tensly over our radios. He was contemplating down-leading to get back to the last, larger ledge, and breaking up the climb that way. I was worried about the repel, because we were getting darn close to the middle of the rope. He could, however, see another ledge, with a tree, about 40ft above him.
Eventually, we decided he would run it out as much he could and try to make it to the ledge above him. If he hit the middle of the rope on the way up, I would radio him, and he would climb back down. Mark says later that was probably one of the scariest leads he had done in a long time. He didn’t have the gear to adequately protect the climb, and he had the thought of down-leading hanging over him the whole way up.
So, while Mark was slinging roots and clipping the rope directly into passively-placed tricams above me, I was watching the middle of the rope get closer and closer and wondering when I should radio. When I see the middle of the rope leave the ground? When it goes through my belay device? When it gets higher above the ground than I want to slide off my belay?
Just as the middle of the rope was sliding through my gear and I was getting ready to warn Mark, he radioed down that he found the anchors. HALELUIAH! He set up his belay anchors and then I climbed up behind him. The climb was harder than I expected. The smooth walls on either side were made worse by a large amount of shoe rubber covering them. The crack was really wide in several places. I made it up with a little difficulty, and the top had a nice view. The first pitch of this climb turned out to be 110ft long! The second pitch was basically 30ft of a dirty 4th class gully. Definately not worth doing.
A long my way up, I had one of Mark’s tri cams from the top of the climb wiggle its way out and smack me on the helmet. It was kind of scary to think, had I not been wearing a helmet, I would have had that chunk of metal embedded in my skull.
So, that’s definitely a checkmark under the “Second some high-exposure routes with Mark” goal for me. We enjoyed the view for a while. You could see people climbing over near Kampsite and even all the way over at Torrent Falls. I suddenly remembered my first outdoor climb… Kampsite (5.9) right here at Roadside Crag. I had been terrified on top because the exposure was intense. I remember looking out behind me and seeing what looked like a smooth face, with two climbers seemingly stuck to the wall with some hidden suction cups. I remember thinking “Those are real climbers, that’s not me. I’m not like them. I can’t do this…” But I knew that was wrong. I beat those thoughts that day. I finished Kampsite and yelled down to Mark “I’M A ROCK CLIMBER!!”
Well, last weekend, I realized what I had seen that day was a second climbing up to the belay ledge on Roadside attraction. Doing what I had just done. After watching my husband run-out a long trad climb, worring intensily about how we were going to get down the whole time, and then taking a wizzing tri-cam to the top of my helmet... now I felt like a real rock climber.
PS to the whole story... the doubled-over rope made it ot the ground with a full 6 inches touching, and the repel down was uneventful. After a couple good "I was wrong. You were right"s, Mark was happy, and actually pretty proud of the lead. We climbed a bunch of other classic routes for the rest of the day and... strangly... never saw any rain.
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scientiffikk
Apr 15, 2004, 9:29 PM
Post #2 of 4
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Registered: Oct 11, 2003
Posts: 64
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Nice story. Maybe I should buy a 60 meter rope next time.
p.s. it's rappel :) (not repel)
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outdoorsie
Apr 15, 2004, 10:21 PM
Post #3 of 4
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Registered: Jan 15, 2003
Posts: 302
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:oops: My bad. Bad spellers of the world, untie!
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singlespeed
Apr 15, 2004, 10:36 PM
Post #4 of 4
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Registered: May 15, 2003
Posts: 13
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hey thanks for the post. i haven't thought about that route in years. we used to see who would place the fewest pieces of pro on that route, then it was who will solo it. nothing like soloing that route, watching the sun break through, climbing that other crack a few hundred feet to the right (name?) then running down the hill and waking up all the sport climbers! for a day of clippin bolts. glad you enjoyed the route. it's a good one!
cheers
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